


Everyday

by Sestra_Prior



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, M/M, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-11
Updated: 2006-04-11
Packaged: 2018-09-30 12:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10162883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sestra_Prior/pseuds/Sestra_Prior
Summary: Things need to be said.  Will Severus allow Harry to say them?





	

DISCLAIMER: All characters are the property of J K Rowling.

 

**A/N**

Beta-ed by RaeWhit, who does so much more than simply correct my mistakes. Thank you.

 

 **Everyday**

 

Everyday followed the same pattern. A time for everything, and everything done at its appropriate time.

Six-thirty, rise, wash and dress.

Seven o’clock, eat breakfast.

Seven-thirty until twelve-thirty, study.

Twelve-thirty until one pm, lunch.

One pm until six pm, study.

Six until six-thirty, evening meal.

Six thirty until ten-thirty, reading.

Ten-thirty, bed.

So, at three pm, it was a fairly safe bet that you would find Severus Snape at work in his tiny potions laboratory. 

A changed man. Six years since Harry Potter had defeated the Evil One. Four years since Severus had been released from Azkaban.

His hair was still lank and greasy, but the face framed by the wings of blackness was paler. Dark circles like bruises beneath his eyes, cheekbones more prominent than ever. Still wearing the habitual black robes, but now they looked more like something Remus Lupin would have worn. Clean, but worn. Minute stitches darning the holes in the heavy material

His eyes. Still black, but now more shuttered than ever. Face set in an expression that did not invite familiarity. Not that there was anyone with whom to be familiar. Just Severus. Alone. Everyday the same. 

~~~

When the knock sounded at the door, Severus had to think for several minutes about what the noise could be. His body coiled like an over-tightened spring, ready for fight or flight. The memory of days when he’d always had to watch over his shoulder, never having left him.

The knock sounded again, and now Severus equated the noise with an action he was supposed to perform. Answer the door. 

He crept across the tiny hallway, and opened the door a crack.

Harry Potter, on the doorstep.

Severus closed the door, turned and leant against it. No. I don’t want it to be.

~~~

Next day, three o’clock. A knock on the door. Now Severus knew what the sound signified. He paused for a moment in the careful eking out of his potions ingredients, and thought. And ignored it.

~~~

Another day. Each day the same, so who knew what the actual day was? Three o’clock, another knock. Severus was expecting it. He placed the vial of asphodel down on the counter top, and stood, silent. Finally making up his mind, he moved to answer the door.

On the doorstep, Harry Potter.

Severus stared at him through the small crack he had opened. It had been so long since he had spoken, that he had difficulty remembering _how_ to speak. Then….

“What?” he managed to croak, the voice rusty with lack of use.

“I think we need to talk…” Harry began.

Severus closed the door again. Potter might need to talk; he did not.

~~~

Three o’clock. Severus was waiting in the hallway, behind the firmly closed front door, half expecting, half hoping. What was he hoping? That Potter wouldn’t come? Or that he would? 

Knock, knock.

A crack through which he peered again. 

“What is it Potter?” His voice stronger now, as he had been practising speaking aloud. Why?

“Professor, please, we need to talk, just give me a mome….” 

The voice was cut off as the door swung back into place.

Severus allowed himself a treat that night. A quarter-inch of whiskey. He thought about Potter. The boy had grown, become a man. The dark hair was long on his collar. The green eyes dazzled now that they were no longer hidden behind spectacles. But still the same arrogant attitude. As if he expected to be invited in for a cup of tea. After everything. After allowing Severus to be sent to Azkaban. When he, and only he, had known the truth.

~~~

Another day. The same as all the others. Except that it wasn’t. Potter had upset Severus' routine. Now, as three o’clock approached, the tension grew in Severus' body. He shook his head to shake loose the buzzing in his brain. His hands were unsteady on the bottles of ingredients. Would the boy, man, come again? Or had he finally got the message? That Severus Snape was doing perfectly well on his own.

Potter hadn’t got the message. Severus cursed as the knocks sounded loud through the little house. He swept to the door, and flung it open.

“Mister Potter, I always knew you found it hard to grasp some things, but you are really excelling yourself in this instance. When will you realise that I have no wish to see you, and nothing to say?” He glared at the young man on the doorstep.

“You might have nothing to say to me, but I have something to say to you! Now just how much longer are you going to keep up this stupid slamming of the door in my face?”

As long as it takes, thought Severus as he once again leaned against the hastily shut door.

~~~

At three o’clock the following day, Severus jerked open the front door just as Harry reached for the knocker. They stared at each other for a moment. Then Severus begrudgingly stood to one side, and motioned Harry inside.

He led Harry to the small front room, where two rickety chairs with split upholstery stood on either side of an empty fireplace. And he cursed the boy, man, for suddenly making him see just how poor and mean his dwelling place was. Cobwebs festooned the corners, and dust lay thick on the surfaces that Severus never touched. The only place that was clean was his workroom. There, the surfaces gleamed, and each bottle, jar and packet was neatly arranged on the shelves. 

He took a seat. Potter sank, after a moment’s reluctance, onto the other chair.

“Well? Since it appears you are not going to go away, tell me what you want, then get out and leave me alone.” 

“I’m sorry.” Harry wrung his hands in his lap. Severus watched the emotions flicker like the frames of a movie over the boy’s face. 

“Is that it? Well, now that you have salved your conscience, you can go.” He made a motion to rise, but the boy spoke again.

“I didn’t come here to salve my conscience. Well, maybe a bit,” he added with brutal honesty. “But I truly wanted to say I’m sorry for what happened.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better is it, Mister Potter? I’m supposed to forget about the years I spent in prison because you refused to tell the truth? In retaliation, I suppose, for all the wrongs I did you?” Severus paused, trying to steady his erratic breathing. He had sworn to himself that he would not rise to the boy, man, but Potter had always had this uncanny knack of rubbing him the wrong way. “I suppose you think that because you have said you are sorry, that everything will be all right? That we can shake hands, and then you can go blithely back to doing whatever it was you were doing before you got it into your head to come and torment me?”

“I would have told them the truth, if I had known what they had done to you,” Harry said quietly.

Severus was taken aback. What had the boy said? That he hadn’t known? “What do you mean ‘if you had known what they had done to me?” he asked, despite himself.

“They told me you had decided to go away. That you were going to study in some other country. That you wanted to make a fresh start where no one knew you.”

“Go.”

Harry looked surprised. “But…” he began.

Severus stood, towering over the seated boy, man. “Just go, Mister Potter. You’ve said your piece, now get out and leave me alone.”

Harry rose reluctantly to his feet, and with one last look at his old professor, he went to the front door and let himself out. 

Severus sank back into the chair he had been seated in, and put his head in his hands. Why? Why now, when he was used to the way things were? When the monotony and loneliness had just about become bearable? When his poverty was something he had adjusted to, his only regret the meagreness of his supply of potions ingredients?

He cried. Tears slipping silently into the soft, worn fabric of his robes. He did not need to be reminded how to feel again. The days when he could allow himself feelings were long gone. Now he had routine. A still, small world of study, and his beloved potions.

Severus batted crossly at the tears, rose, and went back to his laboratory.

~~~

He had been sure he had seen the last of Harry Potter, and if there was a trace of regret, he was not admitting it. Even to himself. So when, at three o’clock, the knock came at the door, Severus' heart gave a lurch, and he quickly placed the packet of Mandrake root onto the table, and hurried to the door.

“You are certainly persistent, Mister Potter. I’ll give you that. Perhaps if you had showed such dedication to the study of potions, you may have done considerably better at school.”

Harry’s face split into a grin. “May I come in?”

Severus eyed him for a moment, then nodded. Seated once more in the squalid front room, Severus regarded Harry warily.

“What do you want now? I thought you said enough yesterday.”

“I didn’t get a chance to say all I need to, so until you give me the chance to do so, I shall be here everyday.”

“Talk,” Severus said abruptly.

“Will you listen?”

“I may, if you what you have to say is of interest to me.”

“Had I known they had imprisoned you, I would have done everything I could have to get you out. No! Don’t interrupt, just let me talk, as you instructed me to do. Had I known where you were, I would have come years ago. But I never thought to look in this country. I never realised you were so close. I’m sorry, Professor….” 

“I’m not your professor. Stop calling me that.” Severus interjected. 

“I’m sorry. Sorry for everything. Severus…may I call you Severus?”

Severus nodded briefly.

“Severus, I’m sorry that you have had to live like this….”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Live like this? Like what? This is how I choose to live. Who are you to come and criticise the way I live? What do you know about anything? Next you will be offering me some of your vast wealth in an attempt to ease your conscience. You have nothing I need, Potter, nothing. Just go,” he added wearily.

“No.”

Severus glanced up quickly. “No? This is my house and you will leave when I tell you to!”

“No. I won’t. This time you are going to listen. You are a stubborn, foolish man. There is no need for you to live like this, and don’t give me all that bullshit about choice. This is not you, Severus. It never was, and it never will be. The Wizarding world has so much to be grateful to you for….”

“Ha!” Severus laughed bitterly. “So grateful they rewarded me for my dedication by sending me to Azkaban for two years.”

“Why didn’t you contact me?” Harry asked, a note of sadness in his voice.

Severus was silent for a few moments. “I believed it was what you wanted.”

“You thought I would want you in prison? Oh, of course, ‘in retaliation'. Don't judge everyone by your standards, Severus. I would have come for you. Merlin, I would never have let them put you away to start with."

"But you were too busy fighting off reporters and wallowing in the grateful adoration of the Wizarding community to give a thought to what had happened to me," Severus interjected nastily. 

"That's not it at all. I did ask about you. They told me you had gone away, as I explained to you before." 

There were a few moments of silence. Severus glared at the boy, man, before him, who sat twisting his hands in his lap. 

"Why now?"

"What?"

"Why now?" Severus repeated. "Why after so long?"

"You're a difficult man to find. It has taken me two years to track you down."

"Two years?" Severus was taken aback. The boy, man, had spent two years trying to find him. Trying to find his bad-tempered old Potions master. Why? 

"Why?" he repeated aloud.

Harry looked abashed. "I needed you to know that I wasn't to blame. I wanted to say I was sorry. When I found out that you had been in Azkaban, well I…" he trailed off and bit his lip. "Well, I was very angry. I set the record straight, told them the truth about what had really happened, and demanded that they recompense you for wrongly imprisoning you. Told them they had to apologise."

"And why didn't you leave it to your lackeys to do so then?"

Harry was silent for a moment, staring at his hands. Finally he raised his eyes to meet the gaze of the man before him.

"I missed you," he whispered. Then added more strongly, "It was personal." He paused again, looking unhappily at Severus. “I thought we had something.”

Severus clenched his hands under the cover of the long folds of his sleeves.

"I think you should go, Mister Potter." Severus swallowed, then forced himself to continue. "I thank you for your apology. But those are times I no longer wish to remember. I have moved on. So should you. I don't need anything from anybody. I have adjusted to my new life." He stood, indicating to Harry that it was time to go.

~~~

When the boy, man, had gone, Severus trailed back to his laboratory. It was suddenly not enough. He glanced around at the half empty shelves. Potions ingredients were expensive and he had limited funds. It was getting to the stage when it would be a choice between buying food or potions ingredients. He had nothing to live for without his potions. Not long to live with them, without food.

He allowed his mind to wander to the possibility of accepting compensation from the Ministry, but immediately recoiled from the idea. Severus was his own man, and no matter how one looked at it, compensation was charity. A balm to someone's soul. Harry's soul. 

Severus examined his potion-stained fingers. Still long and elegant, but skeletal at the same time. The skin, pale and fragile, stretched over the bones. Blue veins showed beneath. Severus traced the path of one large vein with a fingertip, his mortality pulsing beneath the end of his finger.

He was forty-three. He could have been sixty-three. His routine disrupted, the blanket of monotony that had muffled him from life had been thrown back, and now life came at him from all sides, forcing its way through the careful façade he had constructed. He felt the weary pull of exhaustion…of too little to eat…of lack of purpose.

Severus picked up a bottle from the counter-top and hurled it against the wall. And immediately regretted his outburst of emotion. He couldn't afford to replace the equipment he had so foolishly destroyed. Curse the boy, man. He had opened the door and let Harry (Harry?) and life, into his small world. It had taken him three years to adapt to his forced environment. Now he would have to start from the beginning again. And he didn't know if he could. Didn't even know if he wanted to try.

~~~

Severus broke another piece of equipment the following day, when the knock sounded on the front door. He stood in a moment's indecision, but the damage had already been done. There was no point in barring entrance to the boy, man, now.

He opened the door, then turned away, not even glancing back to see if Harry (Harry?) was following him. This time he took the boy, man, into his laboratory, and set about clearing away the shards of glass as Harry entered, gazing about him. Severus was sure the green eyes missed nothing. The sparseness of the supplies, the second grade equipment. The hopelessness.

Severus’ shoulders began to shake. No! He couldn't break down. He had never allowed himself that luxury, even alone. And now, not in front of the boy, man. Please. He attempted to steel himself, to fight the overwhelming feelings of loneliness and despair. But the dam had been breached. He felt Harry's arms come around him, and, in an attempt to retain some dignity, tried to shrug away from their encircling. But his will power was not strong enough, and the lure of warmth and comfort, too great. 

Severus Snape curled into the embrace of the man who held him, and cried out his pain.

Harry held him, his own tears falling silently, unheeded as he shared the pain of his erstwhile lover.

~~~

Harry helped him pack. The belongings few. Two black bags and a box of potions ingredients and equipment, all there was to show for Severus’ forty-three years.

Severus had tried to protest. But his heart wasn't in it. He knew if he didn't go with Harry now, then the next time the man came back, he might well be knocking at the door of an empty house. And somehow, somewhere, he had regained the will to live.

~~~

Harry's house was not a great deal larger than his own. But so very different. A cottage set in a garden planted with herbs. Severus’ eyes showed a glimmer of interest as they walked between the rows of carefully cultivated potions ingredients, up to the blue front door. A hallway. A cosy front room, a fire crackling in the grate. Two armchairs standing guard on either side of the hearth. The kitchen, neat and tidy, a small dining area with a table and two chairs to one side. A doorway leading off, a doorway that led to a room that had obviously been recently added. A fully-equipped potions laboratory. 

Severus turned to Harry. "I didn't know you had such an interest," he said, amazement in his voice.

"I don't, silly." Harry laughed. "It's for you."

Severus stared at the man for a moment, then moved, eyes wide, into the bright, airy room. "For me?" he asked, unable to comprehend.

Harry's face became solemn, "For you." With an obvious attempt at levity he added, "I want you to stay here with me, where I can keep an eye on you."

Severus turned back to Harry, tears in his eyes.

“Oh, no, Severus. This wasn’t meant to make you cry, please don’t cry,” Harry pleaded, a look of anguish on his face.

Severus blinked back the tears. Part of him still rebelled against the idea of accepting anything from Harry, but the more sensible part of his brain reiterated the fact that, left by himself, the end would be soon, and would be a miserable one.

He drew himself up to his full height, gratified to note that he still had an advantage over the young man. In his best "Professor" voice he said, "Well, Mister Potter, everything seems to be in order. Of course I will need to complete a thorough examination."

Harry smiled, "It's good to have you back, Professor Snape."

~~~

Of course, there would be more tears, more recriminations, and a lot of time before their relationship resolved itself. But that is another story.


End file.
